Friday, August 29, 2008

The garbage truck vs. the fire truck

Nora: Should I even tell you? Because I think I'm really going to make it big with this one. Maybe you should just wait to read it.

Jeff: OK. Whatever you want.

Nora: No, I want to tell you. It's BRILLIANT.

Jeff: OK.

Nora: See, I'm going to open up saying how our son Hugo's first love was the garbage truck. And how we searched far and wide for garbage truck toys and books and found like two. And then how he was seduced by the fire truck--the shiny red engine, the woo-woo-woo. And then I'm going to say how it's so much easier to find fire truck crap--plates, rain boots, books, rain coats, you name it, you can get it with a firetruck on it.

Jeff: But who would want to eat off a plate with a garbage truck on it? That's gross.

Nora: Wait, you haven't let me finish. I'm not to THE POINT yet.

Jeff: Sorry.

Nora: And besides, who would want to eat off a fire truck plate anyway? Look! Burning building! People getting hurt! Let's have some spaghetti!

Nora: The point is, see, that the garbage truck represents public health, sanitation, infrastructure. The garbage truck keeps people healthy. Imagine if there were no garbage collection? Imagine the disease, the filth. The water supply! Can you imagine? IMAGINE!

Jeff: (silence)

Nora: But the fire truck, getting people out of buildings, cats out of trees, now that gets all the glory. It's great and all but the role of the garbage truck completely gets overlooked because it's PREVENTION, not TREATMENT. There could be garbage man raincoats and rain boots, but is there? No!

Jeff: (silence)

Nora: So remember when I was agonizing about whether to go into public health or medicine, and I really liked public health but was drawn by the glory and prestige of medicine?

Jeff: No. That was before we met.

Nora: Whatever. But see, it's the SAME THING. Public health is the garbage truck, medicine is the fire truck.

Jeff: Also the garbage truck comes more often than the fire truck.

Nora (to self): ?

Nora: So that's my idea. I'm just waiting for the inspiration to turn it into a really top-notch blog post.

You are brilliant, CLEARLY. I'll be here, waiting for a shiny new set of garbage truck tableware from BubbaNorCo. Until then, Jeff and Byron might need to form a Husbands of Brilliant Bloggers support group.

Who can argue with points like that? I mean really? And plates have lady-bug designs on them and everything else... doesn't that fall into the 'yay! let's eat a plate and pretend we're eating bugs too!' thing? hee hee.

I remember the power of the garbage truck (or bin lorry as we call it on this side of the pond). My son used to rush to the window to watch them, the binmen would look out for him and wave back and actually look sad when he was napping and not there to wave...now he's 5 and the bin lorry gets nary a second glance, it's all fire engine, fire engine.